Why President Obama, Mitch McConnell took the deal

One word explains Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s decision to toss out 20 years of Republican orthodoxy and sign on to major new tax hikes: leverage.

Senate Republicans didn’t get the big spending cuts they’d hoped for as part of the fiscal cliff deal. They didn’t get the elimination of the estate tax. But deeply aware that Obama could jam them on the tax cuts that expired on New Year’s, they took a deal that’s less about the round they knew they’d lose and more about the next round they believe they can control — which will begin almost as soon as this one is over.

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Obama: Cliff deal 'just one step'

McConnell: 'We are very, very close'

Obama: Agreement in sight

Republicans insist they’re happy that they’ve strengthened their hand for the next round — but make no mistake, some of that stance is making a virtue of necessity. They feared President Barack Obama could caricature them as the defenders of tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. Plus Obama’s the one with the bird in the hand — pocketing tax cuts for the overwhelming majority of Americans, which the White House plans to tout heavily in the months ahead — while Republicans are left to lick their wounds and dream of besting him at some future date, for some unspecified future spending cuts and entitlement reform.

Obama didn’t get the deal he was hoping for either, but in his mind, now has fulfilled a signature campaign promise and gotten the momentum and template to do more big things in his second term, all while breaking the GOP “fever” that stopped them from raising taxes.

But it’s McConnell and the Senate Republicans who strayed from the usual script — all in the hopes of winning the next big battle.

By delaying the sequester cuts for two months, McConnell’s forced them to coincide with the debt ceiling fight. By then, the president won’t have expiring tax cuts or the end-of-the-year media attention to hold over Republicans, and without that — especially after striking a deal and accepting the president’s position on taxes — McConnell will be able to control the coming conversation on spending cuts and overhauling entitlements. Obama got his New Year’s victory, goes the thinking, but now McConnell will be in charge for the rest of 2013.

“This is Obama’s high point in the second term,” said Grover Norquist, the patron saint of refusing to raise taxes. “The next four years are the Republicans … chipping away at his spending, and that’s a fight where independents side with the Rs on a regular basis.”

This story seems a bit premature to me seeing as to what is going on in the House right now, despite this bill having cleared the Senate with staggering support, taxes still went up today on all Americans. Until the House votes and passes this bill our taxes still went up, so much for the Republicans saying they were against tax increases. Instead of voting on this bill, yet again Boehner is allowing his nutso faction to have free rein again and at the end of the day if they can't get this done before Thursday this will have to taken up again and fought over again by the 113th Congress. To bad the GOP doesn't realize the more they drag their heels and squeal they are doing the will of the people the further away from the will of the people they get. Despite what they think the will of some 50 something districts does not make it the will of all the people, it only makes it the will of those districts.

AJ,If you and Commie Obommie gets your way, I sooo hope you lose your job.Maybe you already are living off of another man's labor and don't care, tho.Too many have no work ethic and are happy to let another man or woman pull their wagon, feed their kids, pay their rent...sorry asses!

I mean seriously this legislation is another sign of the unreality of DC. Who votes YES to a Bill that includes 4 trillion to the deficit and 330 billion in spending when Obama himself has blamed Bush for deficit spending and promised to cut the deficit in half? Somehow this Bill is a real turkey.

It's obvious the Senate Republicans lost their mind and kicked the can to the House to man up and say No to Barack. Cantor already has.

Republicans got their behinds handed to them ,on Nov.6th and were finally getting resigned to the taxes going up on the 200k and above.

Now we don't have the defense cuts and we only raised the rates on a tiny .07% of the mega rich. People who's 16 yr olds get a Bentley and mom gets the Bentley convertable to ride in while trying to count how many beach front homes they own. 1 million millionairs basically.

BUT. They got their dividend and investment profits locked in for YEARS !!!!

House is voting on the Senate bill, with no amendments, in about an hour. Doesn't mean that sequestration couldn't happen, that would be too boring, since the spending side of the fiscal deal will be dealt with 2 months down the road. Then we can go through this whole nonsense again.

In letting the Bush tax cuts expire today, a tax law that has Republican fingerprints all over it, all those in Congress (Republicans included) who voted for the Bush tax cuts long ago also voted for what McConnell calls the biggest tax hike in history, for the tax hikes were built into the original Bush tax-cut law. Anyway you view it, Republicans are partly responsible for the biggest across-the-board tax hike ever.

Norquist has developed a parsing pathology, trying to do for the words "raise" and "vote" what Bill Clinton tried to do for the word "is." Norquist is now irrelevant, a bad joke. Not only did Republicans violate their pledge; they did it in a massive way -- raising taxes substantially on everyone. It's pretty ironic that as things stand, the Republican-controlled House is in the record books as insuring the biggest tax hikes in U.S. history.

I quit working at shoprite and now I make $35h - $80h...how? I'm working online! My work didn't exactly make me happy so I decided to take a chance on something new… after 4 years it was so hard to quit my day job but now I couldn't be happier. Heres what I do, , www.Ask22.com

First off we have to see how the House votes on this bill before anyone starts patting eachother on the back. Kind of strange that Obama who makes $400,000.00 per year as POTUS had NO problem with raising taxes on people who make OVER $ 400,000.00 per year , not the $250,000.00 amount he wanted and used in his campaign over and over again.......or didn't you ObamaBots notice that ?

With NO spending cuts included thus far in the bill as is ........what have we gained exactly ? NOT much.....just kicking the can down the road as per usual. Unless something major changes in the bill before it gets to Obama's desk. I can't see where either the Democrats or Republican's have much to crow about .